Our usual beach of choice is St. George Island State Park. And we love it so much. We love it so much in fact that we bought a year-long Florida State Park pass to go whenever we want. But with this fancy pass, it works not only at St. George Island State Park, but it works at every state park in Florida! That's over 150 parks for us to visit with our State Park Pass. So, we decided it would be fun to visit as many as we could until May 2013! And so we finally visited a new place together.
Last Saturday we went to Panama City Beach to go to St. Andrew's State Park. We left real early in the morning and got Chick-fil-A for breakfast. So good. When we got there, we got all sunscreen-ed up, and hopped on our bikes that we had brought with us. Our plan was to just ride around a little bit exploring PCB casually and find some place to eat lunch while we were doing it.
Before we realized it though, we had ridden much further than we thought we had. It felt so nice outside, and we had a strong breeze was behind us, so we were just flying along a great speed and pace. We stopped to buy more water, then headed back to a place we had passed on the way out that looked like the perfect beach atmosphere restaurant. So we locked up our bikes out front, and shared some grouper and fries at Schooner's. And I mean hello?! That is the best view I've probably ever had for lunch time. Everything was open air and it felt great, and it was a great place to eat lunch in your swimsuits, in the middle of a bike ride. Lovely.
After lunch, we stopped at a few of the "local" tourist shops to do some browsing and shopping. I love Ocean Potion brand sunscreen and aloe lotion, but can't ever find it around here. But you can always find it at the beach. So I stocked up, and it was just in time too, because the one I had brought ran out while we were there! But the more important purchase was some matching BFF bracelets that Jeff and I picked out to wear together. I half-way suggested getting some, and when he agreed he would be up for it, I was totally psyched. This is only one small reason why I love this man so much! :)
After hanging out in a town a bit longer, we rode back to the state park. Total, we ended up riding around 9 miles on our bikes that day! We had fun, and got some exercise too. Back at the beach again, we tried to set up our chairs and umbrella, but it was sooooo windy!! When we left for our bike ride in the morning, it was a yellow flag. But by the time we got back, it was red, and it was serious. The wind was blowing too hard to even leave the umbrella up, so we immediately put it back in its little bag. We got out in the water, and holy cow was the current so stinking strong! We were literally fighting the current and the little waves so that we wouldn't get swept out to sea. In the midst of all that though, we had some time to play around with my water camera :)
(Side note about the water pictures... I took a ton of him jumping and playing around in the water, and got quite a few keepers. There are even more that I didn't put up of him. However, when it was his turn to take my pictures, he kept saying that the camera was messed up and it wasn't working right and blah, blah, blah... but obviously I was able to get it to work, soooo...I'm just saying - operator error...)
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| I still love you even if you can't work my water camera dear! :) |
After we had collected some shells and sand in a mason jar (We're keeping a collection of all of our beach trips together. Maybe I should do a blog post about that?!), we loaded all of our stuff back up in the car, and got dried off and into fresh clean clothes. We decided on the way home to drive the whole way back up highway 98, which for you non-Floridians is also "Coastal Highway." It's the more scenic route, but it's a lovely drive! We stopped in Mexico Beach at a random little seafood restaurant that was (I think) called The Fish House. And it was quite yummy too! I was sooo sleepy after dinner, and fell asleep in the car on the way home.
It was a great day at the beach, we had fun exploring a new town and a new state park, and I had a great day with my wonderful boyfriend! I can't wait until our next adventure together!
Happy, sunny, warm love being sent to everyone. Love yall!
P.S. - Our great philosophical debate in the car was centered on what citizens of each state are called. (I.e. - if you live in Florida, you are a Floridian.) Some of them are sooo confusing and difficult, and we never could figure them all out. We're still talking about it four days later! So feel free to let me know some of the more difficult ones if you happen to know. Like: Connecticut, Iowa, North/South Dakota, Maine, etc.... I could list a ton. It's quite tricky, but I'm so curious now!
P.P. S. - There's a couple more pictures over on my "photography blog" from PCB too...
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